Tasmania: The Untourist
Illustrated Reference Vintage Australiana Travel Writing Australian Travel Guide Wildlife & Nature Off-the-Beaten-Path Travel Cult Travelogue
Tasmania: The Untourist is the 1994 cult-classic travelogue that savvy second-hand hunters still type into search bars when they want the island’s secrets, not its clichés. In 152 generously illustrated pages, author and documentary-maker Suzanne Baker swaps the usual “top-10 lookouts” for an insider’s roadmap to wildlife encounters, hidden artisan studios, and remote beaches you won’t find on today’s Instagram feeds. The fact that every copy is spiral-bound means it lies flat on the passenger seat while you navigate the Lyell Highway or the Bay of Fires—an ingenious feature most modern guidebooks abandoned.
What makes this particular copy irresistible to collectors is its “very good” condition from a smoke-free home: no ex-library stamps, no inscriptions, just crisp pages and all 60-odd photographs intact. First-print Untourist paperbacks are increasingly scarce in Australia; they rarely surface in better-than-reading condition because travelers actually used them. Snagging one that has avoided sun-fading, campfire sparks and café stains is the bibliophile’s equivalent of finding a clean 1990s Tasmania national-parks pass in a jacket pocket.
Beyond rarity, the content itself has aged like a fine Tasmanian pinot. Baker’s interviews with local fishers, fourth-generation orchardists and Aboriginal custodians pre-date the island’s tourism boom, so her observations capture a quieter, wilder Tasmania that mass-market 2020s guides can only reference nostalgically. Whether you’re planning a self-drive holiday, researching Australian travel writing, or curating a shelf of vintage Australiana, this illustrated, easy-flip reference delivers both practical coordinates and a time-capsule narrative no digital download can replicate.
Refer to our eBay listing for a full condition report and many more high-quality pictures of this item.
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